Directory_and_Chronicle_1922 — Page 332

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Power to send persons charged

possession.

FOREIGN JURISDICTION ACT, 1890

(2) Thereupon those enactments shall, to the extent of that jurisdiction, operate as if that country were a British possession, and as if Her Majesty in Council were the Legislature of that possession.

6.-(1.) Where a person is charged with an offence cognizable by with offences for a British court in a foreign country, any person having authority derived trial to a British from Her Majesty in that behalf may, by warrant, cause the person so charged to be sent for trial to any British possession for the time being appointed in that behalf by Order in Council, and upon the arrival of the person so charged in that British possession, such criminal court of that possession as is authorised in that behalf by Order in Council, or, if no court is so authorised, the supreme criminal court of that possession may cause him to be kept in safe and proper custody, and so soon as con- veniently may be may inquire of, try, and determine the offence, and on conviction punish the offender according to the laws in force in that behalf within that possession in the same manner as if the offence had been committed within the jurisdiction of that criminal court.

Provision as to

Provided that-

(a.) A person so charged may, before being so sent for trial, tender for examination to a British court in the foreign country where the offence is alleged to have been committed any competent witness whose evidence he deems material for his defence and whom he alleges himself unable to produce at the trial in the British possession:

(b.) In such case the British court in the foreign country shall proceed in the examination and cross-examination of the witness as though he had been tendered at a trial before that court, and shall cause the evidence so taken to be reduced into writing, and shall transmit to the criminal court of the British possession by which the person charged is to be tried a copy of the evidence, certified as correct under the seal of the court before which the evidence was taken, or the signature of a judge of that court: (c.) Thereupon the court of the British possession before which the trial takes place shall allow so much of the evidence so taken as would have been admissible according to the law and practice of that court, had the witness been produced and examined at the trial, to be read and received as legal evidence at the trial: (d.) The court of the British possession shall admit and give effect to the law by which the alleged offender would have been tried by the British court in the foreign country in which his offence is alleged to have been committed, as far as that law relates to the criminality of the act alleged to have been committed, or the nature or degree of the offence, or the punishment thereof, if the law differs in those respects from the law in force in that British possession.

(2.) Nothing in this section shall alter or repeal any law, statute, or usage by virtue of which any offence committed out of Her Majesty's dominions may, irrespectively of this Act, be inquired of, tried, determined and punished within Her Majesty's dominions, or any part thereof.

7. Where an offender convicted before a British court in a foreign place of punish country has been sentenced by that court to suffer death, penal servitude, ment of persons -convicted. imprisonment, or any other punishment, the sentence shall be carried into effect in such place as may be directed by Order in Council or be determined in accordance with directions given by Order in Council, and the conviction and sentence shall be of the same force in the place in which the sentence is so carried into effect as if the conviction had been made and the sentence passed by a competent court in that place.